A life lived in the feminine. Hear my tales.

Tag: panic disorder

If you have ever had one panic attack, you already know it’s not fun but if you have ever had a cycle of attacks . . . ugh.

It’s absolutely horrifying and debilitating. Going through one attack will leave you fatigued, but if you experience a cycle of attacks that come either within the same day or same week, you know how frightening and upsetting it can be.

A year and a half ago, I experienced a cycle of panic attacks within a week. They came day after day . . . after day. I had never had a panic attack before that instance and since then, have not had any in a year.

The cycle of attacks came while I was driving, of all things. I would begin to get hot shortly after I got in the car and then hotter and hotter until my stomach dropped, chest hurt, heart raced, nondriving leg grew numb, and my throat felt like it was going to close. I couldn’t understand why it was happening when I was driving, until I realized that that’s when my mind went on autopilot and stopped worrying about my stressors (a divorce and finances) and could focus on taking my daily commute.

If you have experienced a cycle of attacks and don’t know how to get it to stop until randomly they disappear on their own, follow my advice to get through and stop the cycle as quickly as you can.

You may be the boss of you as an adult, but when you have anxiety, it can feel as if you are never in charge. There may seem to always be something hovering over you and stealing the wheel from your hands when you least expect it. In so many ways, anxiety can operate like a prison. It’s a sentence that you didn’t ask to serve or do anything to bring it on — most likely anxiety was handed to you by genetics or a traumatic situation — but it’s one that many people deal with, whether as a short-term sentence or a life-behind-bars type of scenario. It took separating from a former partner for me to understand how it had affected me.

And it wasn’t just my anxiety that reared now and again (an occasional sentence? community service?) that hurt my progress emotionally, but it was being romantically involved with someone who held it against me, hovering over my head, trying to make me feel bad about myself. Using it as a weapon for control.

It made the anxiety worse, not better, and in that case, there were two prison guards and one operated more covertly than the other (the former partner, not the anxiety). As I walked away from the situation, I started to see the writing on the wall.

I realized I was worth something and that while I can be anxious, anxiety does not rule and will NOT rule me.

People mean well and want to help, but when someone is experiencing anxiety or feeling nervous, the last thing we need is more useless cliches that don’t help us one bit. It’s hard to understand anxiety unless you have experienced it. Most people have felt anxious in their lifetimes, but if you’ve ever experienced the glory of a panic attack or been so anxious you felt sick, you know why I see red when people say, “Just relax.”

Newsflash, Einstein: if we could just relax, we would.

This of course doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to manage your anxiety. When I am feeling anxious, exercise, deep breathing, stretching, and time with friends help me feel better. Sometimes it also means shutting down my cell phone and not bothering with anyone, minus my daughter.

But when someone tries to give you unhelpful advice about anxiety for the 50th time, it’s enough to make you want to check out of dodge for the weekend.

1. “Just Relax”

Look, do you have a magic wand to erase this feeling of dread? If you did, you would use it and if Idid, so would I. Telling me to “just relax” is not helpful.

Having anxiety isn’t fun, but it seems like anxiety is continuously making its way into my life. And that means I’ve got to fight anxiety right back. After having my first panic attack in February and then multiple ones in August, I decided I had had enough.

I wanted to tell anxiety to sit in the back seat while I drove the car, and I haven’t looked back since. Does anxiety sometimes try to grab the wheel, swerving me off the road? You betcha. But it doesn’t mean I’ll take it quietly. Instead, I work every day to kick anxiety’s little tiny butt. And here’s how you can, too.

1. Admit you have some form of anxiety disorder.

Admit you have a problem or sometimes have anxiety, whatever the case may be, and accept it. This is the single biggest step towards kicking anxiety’s ass. If you pretend you don’t have it or try to make excuses for your behavior, you won’t improve. Realizing that anxiety affects you and that you need to take back control is the best way to have a happier life.

2. Realize that getting help doesn’t mean going on medication.

I’m not a big fan of meds, even for panic attacks. But it’s a case-by-case and personal preference basis. Either way, getting help for your anxiety is the only way to gain control.

I highly recommend cognitive behavioral therapy, otherwise known as CBT, because anxiety is so rooted in our way of thinking — negative thoughts, catastrophizing, projection, and fear. CBT addresses ways to change your thinking and point of view.

For me, I’m now able to tell when I’m buying trouble where there is none, or if I’m catastrophizing about the future. CBT is helping me to do this. CBT can also help you gradually address fears and phobias with the guidance of a therapist to which it becomes a fear no longer.

It’s very important if you’re a worrier to make sure you’re worrying about anything and everything that can happen.

In fact, I’m pretty sure you don’t need to double check 1,000 times if you’ve worried enough today, because if you’re an anxious person, worrying comes naturally to you — and you do it with flair!

Why “keep calm” when instead, you can waste seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and then some worrying and preparing for the worst-case scenario? Doesn’t the latter sound so thrilling?

1. You put off fun activities.

Instead of going to that party, taking that interesting job interview, or meeting up with that guy your friend told you about, you decided to worry yourself until you were convinced that somehow everything would be god awful. After one hour of obsessively worrying, you determined that this most certainly would be a disaster, and it’d be better for you to just stay home.

Parenting with anxiety means you’re never quite parenting alone. Nope, there’s always that thread or undercurrent of fear or worry that accompanies us anxious folks that we try to battle or subdue in order to parent without fear. And when I say parent without fear, I mean “parent without the fear of everything and anything thanks to anxiety making you a bad parent,” not parenting without fear, period, because what parent doesn’t get a little afraid sometimes?

As a person who has anxiety — anxiety doesn’t have me! (well, at least not today) — managing anxiety is crucial so that way my daughter doesn’t feel anxious and I feel better, too. I’ve had to mentally train myself to not hoverand it helps that I was once a teacher, so I know the importance of sitting back and letting children do things on their own. Despite my worrywart ways, I am adept at encouraging my daughter to be independent and not to ask me to do things for her. Still, the voice inside my head that panics from time to time when she’s trying something risky at the park or the voice inside my head that scolds me over every little thing I have done is a beast I have to master and control.

Life is a b*tch and so is anxiety.
If you’re dealing with anxiety in any form, you can probably relate to these hardcore struggles that only people with anxiety truly understand.

Are you nervous about what you’re about to read? Then you’re definitely down with these struggles.

1. “I need to talk to you later” is a mind rollercoaster.

When people say they need to talk to you — like your partner or your boss — but that they’re busy right now and will contact you later, you want to kill them. Why? Because now you’re really worried and thinking the worst.

It has to be some horrific news they’re about to drop on you, and the minutes, hours, and days you need to wait in order to hear their “news” has you in such a tizzy that your little anxious brain is running off in tangents.

After the state police and ambulance arrived and did all the required testing, the paramedic gave me the news: “Your blood pressure is perfect. Your EKG is fine. I believe you had a panic attack. Are you stressed or dealing with any life changes?”

Who, me? Stressed? Not me!

I’m supposed to be SuperDivorcedMom! I’m positive. I am nice to my ex-husband and rarely ever lose my cool with him. We are the model divorce.